Comments on: Optimizing Business Communications for Search

By: Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound

Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 17:55:03 +0000

Thanks for reminding me that PDF documents that I upload to my website should be optimized for the search engines.

By: Optimize Your Marketing Communications for Search Engines | ScrapbookMarketing.com

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 20:12:50 +0000

[...] Interesting insight posted at TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog: Optimizing Business Communications for Search. Whether it’s landing pages for PPC, landing pages for email campaigns, web pages, press releases, product data sheets, web pages, anything electronic published to the web – keyword messaging applies. Formats are not limited to web pages either. PDF files and MS Word documents published to the web are probably the most often overlooked optimization opportunity for large organizations. Just implementing simple anchor text linking as a best practice can have a measurable impact when hundreds or thousands of documents are involved. [...]

By: SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 23, 2007 ’at’ Fixmood

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 23, 2007 ’at’ Fixmood — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 20:47:40 +0000

[...] Optimizing Business Communications for Search, Online Marketing Blog [...]

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 23:02:10 +0000

Adam, I agree that too many companies over-rely on SEO for marketing. Due to the many “enthusiasts” and potential results, some businesses might make the mistake of putting too many eggs in one basket. The smart thing to do is to leverage existing activities for the benefit of SEO as a cross channel strategy.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:58:23 +0000

Kamau, it’s a simple cost benefit analysis. The benefit of being easy to find far outweighs the cost of changing best practices to use keywords in corporate messaging.

By: Adam T. Sutton

Adam T. Sutton — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:52:09 +0000

First of all: great post.
Secondly, I find that too many websites rely solely on SEO for a marketing campaign. Although it is extremely valuable, there are many other methods for driving traffic to a website. Email newsletters, setting up satellite websites and dozens of other tactics involve fewer headaches with comparable results. I frequently describe them at my Mequoda Daily blog, http://daily.mequoda.com/ .
The tornado of news that revolves around Google is partly to blame for SEO-centric marketers. Some of those news reports, however, detail Google’s decision to prevent manipulation of its organic search results, which makes for intense headaches when trying to claim the number-one spot. Other tactics, like email newsletters, operate in a much more consistent environment and are too often ignored.

By: Kamau Jackson

Kamau Jackson — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:07:54 +0000

Hi all,
While I agree with the basic and obvious premises advanced here, I have questions about a couple of things. I think there’s a leap in logic when the PR prep example unfolds.

>> If the interviewed exec is speaking in a topical area consistent with the optimized knowledge/documents that already exist. There should already be a place for it– thus removing the problem of findability.

>> The PDF, MS Word, html examples refer to sources over
which content control is absolute. With an interview, external writers and editors over which we have no control determine the finished product. Even the title remains unknown until after publication.

In marketing and (especially) sales terms, documents vary in importance. Some resources, I think, need to be “found” before others. This resource trail should be consistent with the conversion funnel and produce the desired result. Wouldn’t that be more a function of the fundamental info architecture than search?

I think that, as is true in many disciplines, sometime we tend to inflate the importance of our specific area relative to the rest of the marketing mix. This may also contribute
to why battles to get certain issues addressed seem harder than they need to be.

It’s my experience that when a quantifiable business case can be made for a position,it becomes more sustainable.

I welcome any feedback because admittedly, I may have missed something or inferred something that wasn’t intended.

By: Mario Bonilla

Mario Bonilla — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:09:45 +0000

LEE,

Great post. I speak to a great variety of ‘experience levels’ every day in my job here at PRWeb. I am continually disappointed in the lack of basic understanding of SEO by young marketing graduates. I some times wonder if professors teaching the next generation of marketers and business owners are using text books from the 1980’s. This makes trying to achieve integration in ” Business Communication for Search “really hard. Keep up the Good Work.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:20:13 +0000

Exactly! Thanks Daniel. SEO can be as basic or as sophisticated as the organization’s marketing problems to be solved. There will still be a place for textbook SEO, but the results from integrated and cross channel campaigns are too significant for most organizations to ignore.

By: Daniel R

Daniel R — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:20:47 +0000

Nice post Lee!

I gotta see what you’re saying is right on the same wavelength as what I’ve mentioned on my “SEO Website Positioning Strategy” post at: http://www.emergence-media.com/2007/02/seo-as-website-positioning-strategy/

SEO needs to be radically rethinked. Stringing together to the reason why SEO needs to coordinate with PR, Widgets, Usability etc is getting more and more complicated. We need to restart, reboot our general approach on what SEO is.